Movie Making

This dialog allows you to save a series of images from the model view window
for making a movie, or to save a high-resolution image of the model by forming
a montage from a zoomed-up display.
The upper controls make a movie by stepping through
from the values in the left column of text boxes (starting values) to
the values in the right column (ending values).

Press the Set Start button to set the starting values to the
values of the current display, or the Set End button to set
the ending values. You can also edit the values. Note that the "Zoom Factor"
is inversely proportional to the display zoom; specifically, it is half the window
size divided by the display scale in image pixels per window pixel. In
addition to the values shown, the positions of global clipping planes are
recorded. Thus, you can have any number of global clipping planes shift their
positions from the starting to the ending display, but other changes in the
planes will not be reproduced. The transparency of each object is also
recorded at the start and the end, so it is possible for multiple objects to
change transparency during the movie.

If the model view window is opened from 3dmod, then text boxes will
appear for starting and ending image slices in X, Y, and Z. These
values will be relevant if you use the Edit-Image dialog to turn on
display of image slices in the model view window. There are also boxes
showing the transparency of the image display and the thickness, or
number of slices displayed.

Pressing the Make button will cause 3dmodv to
display the number of frames given. The rotation between the
starting and ending positions will be resolved into a rotation
around a single axis, and the rotation will occur at even
increments around that axis. When Write Files is not selected, the
movie will proceed at approximately the number of frames per second given in
the FPS spin box, which allows you to preview a movie before saving
files. If the starting and ending points are the same, then the program will
ask if you really want to run a movie with such settings.

Press the Stop button to stop after the next display.

If Write Files is selected then a snapshot will
be taken of each image. The file will be a TIFF file or in the primary or
second non-TIFF format, depending on which radio button is selected. The
default non-TIFF formats should be JPEG and PNG. To change the format of the
primary non-TIFF option, use the menu entry Edit-Options and
go to the Behavior panel. The second option will be PNG if the first
one is not PNG, or JPEG if the first one is PNG.

Note that the snapshots can be taken with a transparent background by
selecting Transparent Bkgd in the View menu.

To make a movie through 360 degrees around the X or the Y axis,
select the Full 360 X or Full 360 Y button. Then select the
Make button. The number of frames can be set before or
after selecting a Full 360 button. Pressing Set Start or
Set End will cancel the Full 360 selection.

If Reverse is selected, the movie will run in reverse, from
the ending to the starting position, or rotate in the opposite
direction for a Full 360 movie.

If Long way is selected, the rotation will go the long way
around, through an angle greater instead of less than 180
degrees.

It is possible to save a series of movie parameters and play them in sequence
using the Movie Sequence dialog.
The Sequence button can be used to open this dialog.

Montage Making

The lower controls allow one to save a montage of zoomed-up views
of the model into a single TIFF or non-TIFF file, in order to get a
high-resolution rendering of the model. The model will be zoomed up by a
factor equal to the number of montage frames, then translated to a
regular array of positions. When you press Make, images will be
montaged into an array that is saved into a file of the selected type at the
end (it is not necessary to select Write Files). Perspective must be
set to zero in order for this to work correctly.

The Snapshot tab of the Preferences dialog has an option to set the resolution
(in dots per inch) of snapshots saved as TIFF or JPEG. There is also an
option to have this resolution scaled up when taking a montage, so that a
montaged image will display at the same size as a single-frame snapshot in
programs that pay attention to the resolution.